"Doctor Who" star Matt Smith. “I’d have very happily done another year,” Smith said. “It’s a wonderful show. But I think you gotta go when you gotta go, and for me, it just felt like the right time to move on.” (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

"Doctor Who" star Matt Smith. “I was really interested in the side of him that was an alien, you know, the bit that sort of came to Earth and suddenly went, ‘What’s cooking? Why are you getting married? Why are you kissing each other?’” Smith said. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

"Doctor Who" star Matt Smith. “I’m going to miss my friends, and being part of a show where people dress up and make you feel like you’re part of something really unique and special," he said. "It’s changed my life.” (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

"Doctor Who" star Matt Smith. “Matt was overwhelmingly right, for the reasons that everyone now knows,” executive producer Steven Moffat said. “He is like an old man trapped in a young man’s body. He was irresistible, the hipster boffin.” (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

"Doctor Who" star Matt Smith. “I think what he brought back to the role is the absolute nuttiness of the Doctor,” Moffat said. “Matt’s Doctor is basically insane. You put him in a normal situation, and you realize he’s an absolute lunatic.” (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

“Doctor Who” star Matt Smith is set to do some time traveling of a different order.

The English actor is joining the cast of the upcoming “Terminator” reboot, playing a new character with a strong connection to John Connor in the film, set to be directed by Alan Taylor (“Thor: The Dark World”).

The new “Terminator” film, from Paramount Pictures, will be the fifth in the long-running franchise but the first in a planned stand-alone trilogy, with “Game of Thrones” star Emilia Clarke cast as Sarah Connor, the iconic heroine brought to the screen in James Cameron’s 1984 sci-fi action flick and 1991 sequel “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”

Written by Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier, the new film also will star Jason Clarke (“Zero Dark Thirty”), Jai Courtney, J.K. Simmons, Dayo Okeniyi and Byung Hun Lee, with original “Terminator” actor Arnold Schwarzenegger returning to the franchise.

Smith left a nearly four-year run on “Doctor Who” late last year, and since has appeared on stage as Patrick Bateman in a theatrical production of “American Psycho.” He also recently acted opposite Christina Hendricks in the Ryan Gosling-directed thriller “How to Catch a Monster,” due out later this year.

During his time on the beloved sci-fi series, Smith’s mop-haired Doctor loved unraveling complicated puzzles of time and space, eating fish fingers and custard, and insisting, despite raised eyebrows from his accomplices, that “bow ties are cool.”

“I was really interested in the side of him that was an alien, you know, the bit that sort of came to Earth and suddenly went, ‘What’s cooking? Why are you getting married? Why are you kissing each other?’” Smith told Hero Complex in a 2013 interview before his retirement from the role. “For me what was interesting, what made him an alien, is that he didn’t understand human behavior, and therefore that makes him kind of nutty and silly.”

Smith reached instinctively for a characteristic that had been missing from the Doctor since Patrick Troughton’s run in the late 1960s, said “Doctor Who” show runner Steven Moffat.

“I think what he brought back to the role is the absolute nuttiness of the Doctor,” Moffat said in an interview with Hero Complex. “Chris [Eccleston] brought gravitas and stature to ‘Doctor Who,’ which had been missing for a while. David [Tennant] brought cool and sexy. What Matt just went for instinctively, even though he’s the youngest of them all, is the mad boffin. Matt’s Doctor is basically insane. You put him in a normal situation, and you realize he’s an absolute lunatic.”

Comments

One Response to ‘Doctor Who’ star Matt Smith set for key role in ‘Terminator’ reboot

Great. Another regurgitated remake of a relatively recent classic science fiction film. If you're going to do a remake, why not do a remake of something that wasn't so good in the first place? Too challenging? Need to stay firmly within the box? Right. Got it, Hollywood.